In the final countdown to Halloween I wanted to show this little mini quilt I made for my October swap partner, Kay at The Wonky Quilter, in the 6"-12" mini quilt swap. I had a lot of fun with this one. I really wanted to do a word and you know how much I love Halloween. It went together very quickly, even with the hand quilting. As much as I enjoyed this I think I'll have to bow out of any more swaps for the next couple of months at least.

For the most part October has been a marvelous month for weather. The notable exception being the day we went to the pumpkin patch. It was frigid and we only went because it was the only day that our homeschooling friends could go. We did have a great time doing the corn maze and came home with a couple of huge pumpkins.

On another day we went to this pumpkin patch which had one of the most adorable kitties I've ever seen, who even posed for a photo. They also had a fantastic zip line. We were the only ones there on a Sunday morning, so the kids could take as many rides as they wanted.

Our camping weekend was fantastic. The weather was warm, the wildlife was abundant and Mark and Chloe had a wonderful time making some ghostly photos.

This mule deer came right into our campsite, looking for a handout. We didn't offer any, but did get several photos.

We had lots of good bird sightings including a red-breasted sapsucker, magpie, ruby crowned kinglet and this handsome great horned owl. It turned out the owl's roost was right over our campsite. We found lots of owl pellets around the base of the tree. My mom took this fabulous photo the day after we left.